ID
by sirona7
Summary: Jack knows there's a mole in the CIA. He races against time to devise a plan to


Title: ID   
  
Author: sirona7  
  
Email: lclos@aol.com  
  
URLs: Posted at www.nocturnalactivities.net  
  
Keywords: Vignette, Missing Scene, Jack POV  
  
Timeline: S1, The Solution  
  
Rating: PG-13  
  
Summary: Jack knows there's a mole in the CIA. He races against time to devise a plan to   
reveal their identity.  
  
Author's Note: A grateful nod to icyfire's superb story, "Solomon's Decision": one of the   
first Jack stories I read and one of my all-time favorite Alias stories. As for the use of   
Chinese-I am a novice and apologize at the outset for my inadequacy. Finally, my sincere   
thanks to akatolstoy for generous and thoughtful feedback on the story.   
  
Disclaimer: Alias and its characters belong to J.J. Abrams and ABC. I own nothing and   
will not profit from the story. I use a long quote from the transcript of "The Solution,"   
written by John Eisendrath, to ground this story. The quote is bracketed with o at   
beginning and end.   
*******  
  
ID  
The dome of the visible sky was a roiling sea of navy and gray with thunderous waves of   
white forming a menacing whirlpool around Jack Bristow. Unobtrusively guiding the black   
Town Car onto the street in front of Devlin's split-level ranch house, he sighed, "This has   
been one hell of a night."   
  
Taking the curves on the winding canyon road close to the outside edge, Jack felt the need   
for speed. Gripping the steering wheel with both hands, he pressed the accelerator closer to   
the floor. It was late and he was furious. Remembering the day's events, he thought,   
"Tippin's disclosures were a goddamn gift and a clear warning of treachery in the   
building."   
  
What could he have missed? Was another agenda revealed and he was too focused on the   
threat to Sydney to see it? "Ben knows me well enough to know I would never make that   
charge frivolously."   
  
The events of a half hour before replayed in his mind like a grainy black and white   
newsreel.   
  
o   
  
JACK: There's been a breach. Without containment, our entire operation could be   
compromised.   
  
DEVLIN: What's the source?   
  
JACK: Best guess, a whistle-blower well placed within the Agency with access to omega   
seventeen files. He's been talking to a reporter. You should put counterintelligence on it   
right away. They should start with Steven Haladki.   
  
DEVLIN: Haladki?   
  
JACK: He fits the profile. Agent rising in rank. Opposed to company policy regarding SD-  
6. Internal efforts to change policy thwarted. So he takes it out on the building.   
  
DEVLIN: That's a pretty big charge, Jack.   
  
JACK: The source is putting Sydney's life at risk.   
  
DEVLIN: Haladki filed a report on the prophecy. He said you threatened him at gunpoint to   
get information on where the bureau was holding Sydney.   
  
JACK: Yes. And then I used that information to hold other FBI agents at gunpoint in order   
to free my daughter from a witch hunt. You need to get CI on this tonight.   
  
DEVLIN: I want you to stop. I hear your concerns and I will choose how to respond to   
them myself. You're a good agent, Jack, but lately, I find your methods reprehensible. If I   
hear of one more instance of you acting off book, you're done.   
  
o   
  
"How could you leap to so wrong a conclusion, Ben? Dammit, you misidentified both the   
threat and the enemy."   
  
The rain was hammering down on the windshield and flashes of light crackled across the   
hemisphere. Jack loved storms-the unleashed power of nature inspired him with the kind of   
respect he felt for little else. "This night is waxing monstrously Wagnerian," he thought,   
"die gotterdammerung."   
  
He grimaced and opened the phone. "I better check in before the earth cleaves and the car is   
swallowed whole." He listened with one ear to the atonal symphony of the storm.   
  
A familiar reedy voice answered, "Bristow residence."   
  
Noticing a distinctive pattern of movement in the rearview mirror.   
  
"Yes, Mrs. Zhang, I'm on my way in. It's going to be a late night."   
  
"Already after 1am." she said through a muffled yawn. Jack pictured her vaguely amused   
expression. He increased his speed and cut right, heading the wrong way down a   
residential street. The black Ford Taurus was definitely following.   
  
"Right, sorry, any messages?" Turning back onto the 8-lane boulevard, he didn't lose   
them.   
  
"Dr. Barnett, about tomorrow. A journal, not to forget. Nothing else."   
  
"Fine. I'll see you soon." he paused for her answer.   
  
"Soon, yes, see no." she said as she disconnected.   
  
**"Anmian." Jack said amiably to the dead air.   
  
The Town Car entered the intersection just as the light was turning red. He accelerated and   
pulled left across oncoming traffic. The driver of the Ford couldn't respond quickly enough   
and was stuck behind two cars with no chance of making it through the intersection.   
  
"Oldest trick in the book," he smirked. Cutting through an alley, he turned left again. Two   
more turns and he rounded the block and fell in discreetly behind the trackers. "Now, lets   
see who you are," punching the license plate numbers into the tiny dashboard console.   
  
"CA4129PV - government - unverifiable source - an ID, of sorts."   
  
Jack sped up to the car and passed on the inside lane tipping his hand in mock salute to the   
surprised occupants. "Just don't field train 'em like they used to." He half-smiled   
remembering that cold spring in Prague, 1968, when the air seemed to cut the lungs andhe   
felt alive every moment of every day.   
  
Shaking his head, he thought, "Pearl would have had my ass for a job that sloppy."   
  
Another complication: this surveillance. "Can't be Ben, at least, not yet." He wondered,   
had he missed someone earlier? He considered the possibilities with increasing anxiety.   
Sydney had come up against DSR recently and they had long memories and longer sticks.   
"Those bastards would have held her until she qualified for social security if not for "off   
book" action."   
  
Jack's mood darkened. "Not Counter Intelligence, not now."   
  
*******   
  
He parked the car in its spot in the underground garage, and set the trigger on the alarm. He   
felt light-headed but the discipline of decades kept him hyper-alert to extraneous   
movements, unexpected sounds.   
  
Once inside the elevator, he inserted his keyand pressed 23. As the floors rose slowly to   
the top, he felt increasingly nauseous. He leaned back against the mahogany and mirror   
wall, bracing himself with both arms. He knew what was coming. The vertigo always   
came in waves, especially when he was tired: the flood of gangrenous memories, the   
ancient betrayals, the lost lives. He also knew that the quickest way to the other side was   
not to fight it but to let it flow through him.   
  
*******   
  
Jack had sat silently across the worn round bar table from his old friend and listened,   
expecting the lecture with a little extra pity and a dash of contempt. After Laura died, he'd   
been inconsolable: unable to forget, unwilling to forgive, not ready to live again, not yet   
ready to die. They all left him alone, to the Fates, his failures, and his reckless escapades,   
as one avoids handling fulminate of mercury or swimming with Great White sharks. All,   
that is, except Arvin Sloane.   
  
"We've known each other a long time." Arvin began. "It's why I feel I can speak to you   
candidly."   
  
Arvin spoke with a measured cadence, giving weight to each word. "You've   
been...unraveling...for...some time." He paused. "You have to know how...this...will   
likely end."   
  
Jack looked down at his once steady hands and took a long draught of the fiery liquid.   
  
"It's your...choice...of course...as long as...well, as long as it   
doesn't...gratuitously...jeopardize your work...no one will stop you." Arvin leaned in   
closer, conspiratorially, fixing Jack with a long stare, forcing him to meet his dispiriting   
brown eyes.   
  
"You've made...careless...choices, Jack, but, I know...deep...inside...you are still   
an...honorable man."   
  
Jack willed himself to calm the shaking in his lip.   
  
"How would...an honorable man...respond...to this deepening...crisis?" Arvin moved his   
hands together into the shape of a steeple. "It's not just your life, is it?"   
  
Jack felt the cold creeping up the back of his legs to his spine, spreading through his body,   
like curare.   
  
"Isn't it time you thought about what's best for Sydney...for the long term?" His voice was   
mesmerizing.   
  
"I've given this some thought, Jack, and I want us...to work together...for Sydney."   
  
Arvin's logic was impeccable, as always, his manner smooth and reassuring. He seemed   
so confident in the success of the strategy. Jack had only to acquiesce to a certain role and   
then she would be safe.   
  
"Think about it, Jack, it's a...biblical solution."   
  
Sweat beaded on Jack's forehead, as the tightness in his chest increased. Despite the   
feeling of impending doom, Jack couldn't help a brash retort. There was a hint of lilt in his   
slurring voice, "Funny, but it's about as much Agamemnon as Solomon, or so it seems,   
Arvin."   
  
Sloane reached his hand across the table and let it rest on Jack's arm, "Jack, this holds real   
promise, if we work together. Trust me on this."   
  
*******   
  
He forced himself to breath deeply struggling to get a handle on the panic. "How long ago   
now? 20 years?" But, the memories weren't finished with him yet.   
  
*******   
  
He'd stood by her side, not able to look at her directly, but unable to take his eyes off her   
image in the mirror of this same elevator. Her expression, tight mouth and tortured eyes,   
fighting to hold back the tears. "This...arrangement, Sydney...it...has...to...be...this   
way."   
  
He wasn't as adept at deception in those days. His tells told all with that tremulous voice: a   
performance that could only have convinced a child, a trusting, motherless, lonely child.   
His child. "With my new position, I've had to make certain arrangements. New but not so   
bad. You'll get the kind of attention only a fine school can provide during the day, a   
stimulating environment. And, at the apartment, you'll be fine. Mrs. Zhang will be there   
and I'll be home when I can."   
  
*******   
  
His gorge was rising as the elevator climbed each successive floor. Remembering was   
almost worse than living it had been; memories are not single beams, like dreams or   
hallucinations, they play out in myriad revelations, a prism held up to the sun.   
  
And so it had been, to his eternal ignominy, he slowly but unreservedly metamorphosized   
into the ruthless, unyielding man he pretended to be. But that was not Sydney's fate, bless   
her irascible untamed spirit: she gave as good as she got. First, there was disbelief and then   
anger, followed by years of silence. In the end, she was transfigured. She emerged radiant   
from this coercive chrysalis, a stunning woman of whom he was fiercely proud even if he   
was only able to express it in the privacy of his solitary heart.   
  
*******   
  
The elevator stopped.   
  
Jack stood still and consciously recomposed to fit the picture of the man he'd become.   
  
The doors opened to reveal an incongruous sight: set back 10 feet, a wall of earth- and sky-  
toned limestone gracefully tapering off to the left, leading the eye into the serene   
proportions of a classical Chinese garden. Gaslight gently flickered in the deep shadows   
and the air hung like damp sheets scented with night blooming jasmine. The incompatibility   
of this artful profusion of nature with the steel and glass sterility of the building satisfied   
him: an unexpected balance of the contrived and the stirringly regenerative.   
  
Jack rounded the boundary of the rampart and paused in the one moment of grace he   
allowed himself each day. It had been a folly, this garden, begun years before as a way to   
help his housekeeper, Mrs. Zhang, adjust to life on top of 23 stories of blue steel and   
mirrored glass. Over time, they'd come to share in the belief that this carefully crafted   
testament to consequence held the promise of cleansing if not healing in a world rife with   
illogic and randomness.   
  
The door to the apartment was a short walk down a zigzag path through a forest of   
bamboo. He unlocked the door and entered without a sound. He knew his way even in   
darkness. He went straight to his bedroom and changed into well-worn jeans and then   
walked the long hallway to the living room.   
  
The heavy brocade curtains were open to the stormy night. On a low table was a lacquer   
tray with a large covered imari bowl, a teapot, acup, and chop sticks. Next to the tray was   
an unopened bottle of 12 year old Macallan and a crystal tumbler. He touched the top of the   
bowl, still warm.   
  
Smiling, he dialed up the lights and pressed a series of numbers into a recessed pad on the   
control board. The handpainted silk-paneled wall popped forward four inches and was   
drawn silently up two stories to the living room ceiling, leaving exposed a 10 foot high   
whiteboard surface that wrapped the entire width of the spacious room. Every time he used   
the board, he felt a twinge of what-might-have-been had he stayed the course in physics   
instead of answering the call to serve. Shrugging, he returned to the problem at hand.   
"Let's see what we can decipher of this enigma."   
  
But, which strategy? "This has an M.C. Escher feel to it. Screams pattern recognition." It   
was straight forward, relying on methods the family doctor might use to deduce illness on   
the basis of symptoms. His intention was to deconstruct the tessellations: to work back   
from the Informant to the Source. "I keep coming back to one question, why would   
someone with the means to know about my involvement in the kidnapping want to expose   
me?"   
  
He paused, too complex: focus. "Let's place the players."   
  
Jack took a marker and wrote the name Will Tippin and listed in reverse order the facts   
revealed in blood and radio waves-the deaths of Eloise Kurtz, Danny Hecht, David   
McNeil's wife. Then, the facts bearing on the kidnapping. Because Jack's mind craved   
completion, he couldn't leave out a relevant thought if he tried. "Not likely that the   
Informant is working for SD-6 and the Alliance." He quickly sketched in the details most   
pertinent to the kidnapping and the aftermath, from the SD-6 perspective. While Jack   
seemed to be the immediate target of the Informant, the motive was obscure, no following   
this path backwards.   
  
He moved on to the CIA and created a concise list of facts known only by the CIA about   
the kidnapping. "Haladki even looks the part, family Talpidae. That would generally work   
to his advantage-who would ever recruit a mole that actually looks like one? Still he fits   
theprofile in every important detail." He appended a box with the names of those in the CIA   
who would have access to the knowledge. He drew a line through one name, Michael   
Vaughn.   
  
"Now, does CI have a role to play?" It could easily have been CI following him. "The   
greenbottle flies of the trade." He added a few names he knew to the alarmingly long list of   
those who were probably aware of at least some aspects of his agentry. He added the   
names of the few remaining organizations in competition with the Alliance, "Cautionary   
footnotes to the law of natural selection. Never underestimate the capacity of greed to blind   
one to their own long-term survival interests."   
  
Finally, he added "the Man", Alexander Khasinau. Listing details about the organization   
which were now emerging from the world-wide search, he wondered, "Who knows what   
Khasinau intends and how that might be relevant to this query?" "The Man" was behind the   
invasion of SD-6 and the treason of Edward Poole; he was well-connected and clearly   
capable of the highest level of sophistication and ruthlessness in planning and execution.   
  
With hesitation, Jack added one last name: Irina Derevko. He underlined the letter I and the   
letter D, then allowed the marker to slip from his hand to the floor.   
"Who...really...knows...her?" Pushing outrage back in the black box that held all his   
repressions-he couldn't allow himself to be distracted so. "What is the current disposition   
of that one and what might Sydney's obsession with finding her unleash?" He frowned in   
dark dismay, "One irreducible fact, she was Khasinau's damnable protegee, with all that   
likely entails."   
  
Jack stretched and walked around to loosen up. The rain was pounding against the window   
at a 45 degree angle. "'Blow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!' Oh hell's fire,   
I'm just not up to Lear tonight...unless it be the Fool." He poured a large measure of   
scotch, and looked down on the low table, eyeing the covered bowl. "Yes, poor Tom's a   
cold." He leaned over and tipped back the top.   
  
A curly cloud of pungent spice bathed his face. He pulled the chopsticks from the rest and   
sat back on the butter-colored leather couch to pay proper respect to one of his   
housekeeper's ascendant skills.   
  
Finishing the savory noodles, he took a long draft from the crystal glass. Closing his eyes,   
he relaxed into the savory fullness of the golden liquid. A floral, fragrant nose brightly   
suffused onto the palette with hints of lemony citrus and warm toffee. The finish was   
mouth-coatingly seductive: almond sweetness layered over with peat and smoke. Scotch   
was another of the pillars of faith for Jack Bristow, one of few tenets he accepted with   
absolute certainty, and he relished the all of it.   
  
Sitting back to take in the expanse of the chart, Jack's brow furrowed, "I can't help but feel   
I'm missing the forest." After a few minutes, he returned to the board and wrote,   
"Rambaldi" in large gold letters, a banner running across the wall. "How could I overlook   
the old boy?"   
  
He noted carefully the sequence of recent Rambaldi discoveries in a timeline along the   
bottom of the board. "The new intel, Khasinau's latest fixation, where does that fit?" He   
walked to the whiteboard and drew a box next to Alexander Khasinau, "Circumference?"   
  
Jack let his weary eyes wander slowly back over the seeming scramble of colors and lines   
until they came to rest on one neat pyramid of facts. Was he perhaps concentrating on the   
wrong query? "Maybe the more significant question is 'Why Tippin?'"   
  
A tiny spark was catching fire. "Why indeed? Have to move the right players into position,   
but this gambit would have quick yield and quality intel." Sure, it was risky. Sydney was   
attached to the boy and much would ride on Tippin himself. "Is he solid?" Jack wondered.   
  
"Let's review the evidence. Tippin is smart, all appearances to the contrary. He's made   
sophisticated connections with little experience and less evidence. He's clearly motivated   
which is always useful. And he has at least a modicum of courage." Jack smiled   
bittersweetly, "An ineluctable quality, courage, that might make him quite dangerous."   
Finally, Tippin had one trait in common with the best agents he'd ever known: Tippin was   
a man who could easily be underestimated. "Money in the bank. I wouldn't trade that   
characteristic for most of the rest of 'em."   
  
Breathing deeply and with resolve he turned away from the whiteboard.   
  
"We may be back in the game." he thought as he drained his glass. He began shutting off   
the lights as he walked the long hallway back to the bedroom. "Time to ring a few hours   
peace out of reluctant Hypnos."   
  
******   
  
**The translation that fits the intent of the speaker is "sleep peacefully. "   
  
THE END 


End file.
